EVERETT — In Snohomish County, fireworks are something of a hot topic.
On May 15, the County Council will hold a public hearing on an ordinance that would make it illegal to sell fireworks in places where setting them off is already banned.
“This is just really common sense,” said council member Strom Peterson, who pitched the ordinance. “If you’re not allowed to use fireworks in a region, an area, whatever it is, you shouldn’t be able to buy them.”
If passed, the council would close a loophole opened after a 2019 advisory vote prompted action on the issue. Fire departments, including South County Fire, have worked to tighten regulations around fireworks.
“I don’t know if I’d use the word crusade, but we’ve been dealing with it for many, many, many, many, many years,” South County Fire Chief Bob Eastman said.
Jim Kenny, a South County Fire commissioner, said the ordinance “would send a consistent message that fireworks shouldn’t be used in those neighborhoods.”
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 11 deaths and an estimated 10,200 fireworks-related injuries in 2022. Around 19,500 fires are started by fireworks each year, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
The advisory vote in 2019 wasn’t a binding resolution. It essentially was the voters asking the county to take action. Since 2020, setting off fireworks has been banned in the Southwest Urban Growth Area, an unincorporated swath of southwestern Snohomish County: south of Everett and Mukilteo, north of Edmonds and Lynnwood, and all around Mill Creek.
County Council member Nate Nehring said allowing the sale of fireworks — but not discharge — was a compromise made in 2019.
“We also had a pretty significant contingent of folks who are saying our nonprofits, or churches, or whatever, make money from the sale of these fireworks, and it will negatively impact those sort of fundraising efforts if we were to ban the sale,” Nehring said.
Nehring said the sale issue is brought nearly every year. And it’s complicated.
“I can understand and empathize with folks who live in really dense areas and are worried about potential risks of this sort of thing,” he said. “I can also empathize with, you know, folks who want to celebrate the Fourth of July and enjoy it in that way with fireworks. So trying to find a balance that makes both groups happy can be very challenging.”
City governments have banned lighting fireworks in Brier, Edmonds, Everett, Lynnwood, Mill Creek, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo and Woodway. They’re also banned in national parks and forests.
The Snohomish County Fire Marshal’s office deals with the permits for selling fireworks, which run between 30 to 35 each year, Fire Marshal Mike McCrary said.
When Peterson joined the council, several constituents reached out to him about the issue, he said.
“I’ve just found it’s something people in the animal welfare space are really concerned about,” Peterson said.
For people with post-traumatic stress disorder, including military veterans, fireworks can trigger trauma responses. Snohomish County is also home to nearly 3,000 Afghan and Ukrainian refugees, many of whom are escaping a war in their homeland. Fireworks are also bad for soil and waterways.
On top of those worries is the most obvious: fire.
South County Fire serves much of the area the proposed ordinance would cover. Last year, the agency reported 71 fires from July 3 to 5. Eight of those were confirmed to have been sparked by fireworks.
Statewide, fireworks caused 310 fires in 2022, according to a Washington State Patrol press release. Western Washington is getting hotter and drier as well.
“When you get these fire loads drying out and you get projectiles that land in grass and take off from there,” said Todd Anderson, deputy chief of community readiness at South County Fire. “And sometimes it goes so fast that we can’t even get units on scene in time before (the fire) hits a structure. And that causes a lot of devastation.”
A heat dome in the Pacific Northwest in 2021 got fire agencies thinking more seriously about long-term climate conditions.
“If that’s a forerunner to having less precipitation and more dryness in the climate prior to July 4, at some point, is it going to become too dangerous, too dry, to allow fireworks everywhere?” said Kenny, who has been a fire commissioner since 2003 and serves as board chair. “Now, I don’t think we’re at that point. But from a policy level, we’re thinking about it.”
Fourth of July calls for service put stress on first responders, too. Eastman said the holiday — particularly July 4 itself — can double demand.
“That’s fire service-wide and that’s just normal, without any big incidents,” the fire chief said.
The number of calls can put units out of position and lead to longer response times. It can also lead to reliance on outside resources from other agencies that might be called into cover. At that point, Eastman said, they’re hoping other agencies are less busy than they are.
It doesn’t happen often, but it is a worry. And the sheer amount of calls is one of the many reasons the agency is happy the County Council is taking up the topic.
“We’ve been in front of them a lot on the topic, and I don’t always think they get the credit they deserve when they actually do something that’s positive from everybody’s eyes,” Eastman said, “or at least our eyes.”
Public hearing on fireworks
When: 10:30 a.m. May 15
Where: Jackson Board Room, on the eighth floor of the Robert J. Drewel Building, 3000 Rockefeller Ave, Everett.
Remote Meeting link: https://zoom.us/j/94846850772
Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @jordyhansen.
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